Watching, listening, gulping, and grimacing, we watched the whole of the broadcast on our local news station. At the end, we had to postpone phone training to take some time to process. Several people stayed together, using the space to air reactions, feelings, and responses. Our social networker for the day expressed that she was at a loss for how to address this in a positive and prevention-focused way. Facial expressions ranged from stoic to shocked to anger to disappointment to sadness. The conversation reflected the same.

We bounced around in our conversation. Some addressed the failure of university systems to respond to reports of sexual violence. Others discussed fear and frustration of parenting in an environment where it seems impossible to entrust your children to caretakers or educators. Many lamented the lack of compassion for the people who are most affected by violence and pain over the missed opportunities for intervention.

What I’ve come to is that we have a pervasive cultural and institutional problem that’s racking us. It should not take tragedy, crisis, or gross negligence to draw attention to harmful issues within our institutions, organizations, or communities. What do choices like the ones made at Penn State and countless other organizations say about the way we value children? Consistently, our culture blames, bashes, criticizes, and silences people exposed to violence and abuse.

No person should fear losing their job as a result of doing the right thing to protect a child from rape. The “consequences of bad publicity” hold no candle to the impact of child sexual abuse. Any institution that chooses silence is shouting that sexual violence will be tolerated here.

Comments

Thank you for finding the words that I think many of us struggled to find today. There is a sense of bittersweetness to the experience of collective grief--comfort in knowing one is not alone, but also a heaviness to being a witness to others who are struggling to make sense of what seems incomprehensible. I am hopeful that through collective grief comes collective action, for everyone, everywhere who is realizing that we need to start talking about sexual violence, not only because there can be legal ramifications to silence, but simply because we owe it to each other to create happy, healthy, and safe environments free of all forms of violence.

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